💥UPSC 2026, 2027, 2028 UAP Mentorship (March Batch) + Access XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF

Type: op-ed snap

  • Coronavirus – Health and Governance Issues

    Power, problems and potential of federalism

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Seventh Schedule

    Mains level: Paper 2- Federal system

    The article analyses the issues of distribution of powers under the Constitution and the issues linked with it.

    Debate on the role of Centre and states

    • There is an argument for the need to re-examine the distribution of powers under the Seventh Schedule so as to rationalise the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs).
    • Under the Centrally Sponsored SchemesCentre extends support in sectors pertaining to the State List.
    • Spending by the Centre on a state subject like health and need for states’ contribute to a Union subject like defence is considered.
    • However, the constitutional assignments between the Centre and subnational governments in federations, are done broadly on the basis of their respective comparative advantage.
    • That is why the provision of national public goods is in the federal domain and those with the state-level public service span are assigned to the states.

    3 settled issues in the debate

    • The debate seems to have settled on at least three counts.
    • One, the federal organisation of powers can be revisited and reframed.
    • Two, the CSSs must continue but they should be restructured.
    • Three, there is a need for an appropriate forum to discuss the complex and contentious issue of reviewing federal organisation of powers and restructuring of central transfers.

    Review of the subjects in lists

    • In spite of health being a state subject, the response to collective threats linked to the subject required some kind of organisation of federal responsibilities on a functional basis.
    • A typical response is to recommend shifting subjects to the Concurrent List to enable an active role for the Centre.
    • The High-Level Group, constituted by the 15th Finance Commission, recommended shifting health from the State to the Concurrent List.
    • A similar recommendation was made earlier by the Ashok Chawla Committee for water.

    Challenges

    • Shifting of subjects from the State to Concurrent List in times of acute sub-nationalism, deep territorialisation and competitive federalism is going to be challenging.

    Way forward

    • The most collective threats and the challenges of coping with emerging risks of sustainability are linked to either the State List subjects or require actions by states — water, agriculture, biodiversity, pollution, climate change.
    • This extended role of ensuring security against threats to sustainability of resources forms a new layer of considerations.
    • This should define the contours of a coordinated response between the Centre and States — as it happened during the pandemic.
    • In fact, such threats and challenges require the states to play a dominant role.
    • At the same time, the Centre must expand its role beyond the mitigation of inter-state externalities and address the challenges of security and sustainability.

    Consider the question “The federal organisation of powers under the Constitution’s Seventh Schedule needs review. In light of this, examine the problems faced by the distribution and suggest the challenge the review would face.”

    Conclusion

    The ongoing friction between the Centre and the states over GST reforms tells us that consensus-building is not a one-time exercise. It has to allow sustained dialogue and deliberation. Perhaps it is time to revisit the proposal for an elevated and empowered Inter-State Council.

  • Climate Change Impact on India and World – International Reports, Key Observations, etc.

    India must reject the inequitable climate proposal

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Paris Agreement

    Mains level: Paper 3- Paris Agreement and India's progress on climate action

    The article takes stock of India’s climate action and the issue of phasing out the use of coal.

    Context

    • The UN Secretary-General called on India to give up coal immediately and reduce emissions by 45% by 2030.

    State of India’s climate action

    • India’s renewable energy programme is ambitious and its energy efficiency programme is delivering, especially in the domestic consumption sector.
    • India is one of the few countries with at least 2° Celsius warming compliant climate action.
    • India is also among one of smaller list of countries on track to fulfilling their Paris Agreement commitments.
    • India’s annual emissions, at 0.5 tonnes per capita, are well below the global average of 1.3 tonnes.
    • In terms of cumulative emissions, India’s contribution by 2017 was only 4% for a population of 1.3 billion.

    How West is performing?

    • While talking about their phasing out of coal, the global North has obscured the reality of its continued dependence on oil and natural gas, both equally fossil fuels, with no timeline for their phaseout.
    • While it is amply clear that their commitments into the future set the world on a path for almost 3°C warming, they have diverted attention by fuzzy talk of “carbon neutrality” by 2050.
    • Environmentalists in developed countries, unable to summon up the domestic political support have turned to pressure the developing countries.
    • All of these are accompanied by increasing appeals to multilateral or First World financial and development institutions to force this agenda on to developing countries.

    Implications of ending coal investment for India

    •  Currently, roughly 2 GW of coal-based generation is being decommissioned per year.
    •  But meeting the 2030 electricity consumption target of 1,580 to 1,660 units per person per year, will require anywhere between 650 GW to 750 GW of renewable energy.
    • Unlike the developed nations, India cannot substitute coal substantially by oil and gas and despite some wind potential, a huge part of this growth needs to come from solar.
    • However, renewables at best can meet residential consumption and some part of the demand from the service sector.
    • Currently, manufacturing growth powered by fossil fuel-based energy is itself a necessity.

    Conclusion

    India must unanimously reject the UN Secretary General’s call and reiterate its long-standing commitment to an equitable response to the challenge of global warming.

  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-China

    Our larger China picture

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- India-China relations

    Context

    • After the skirmish at the border, Beijing started to concentrate troops, armoured vehicles and munitions opposite our posts in Aksai China at Galwan.

    2 interpretations of China’s move

    • First believes that the Chinese exercise was a territorial snatch in Aksai Chin, which they believe is entirely theirs.
    • The move was accompanied by a “lesson” to the Indians on aggressive Indian behaviour in not conceding Aksai Chin.
    • The second school of thought in India believes that territory has nothing to do with it.
    • They believe that, due to growing economic power, Beijing will lay down the rules of world governance.

    How it matters for India

    • India contest China’s entire southern border, refuse to join the Belt and Road initiative, create an anti-China maritime coalition, compete with them for influence in South East Asia and Africa.
    • India is also unsupportive of their crackdown on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang and move ever closer to the United States.
    • When China assumes hegemonic power after 2030, India is going to get a nasty surprise.
    • Secularism, democracy and the rights of man will play no part in Chinese foreign policy.
    • China will overturn every international, financial, trade, diplomatic, arms control and nuclear agreement that the world has put together in seven decades.

    Way forward

    • We in India need to conduct a large and vociferous debate on Chinese intentions.
    • If the Chinese intention is to “teach us a lesson” we need a new national strategy, combining diplomatic and military means.
    •  If our national goal is to concentrate on the creation of wealth and growing GDP, let us proclaim it, tighten our belt, look down and avoid conflict.

    Conclusion

    What China wants is Indian acceptance of Beijing’s benign superiority, and that is a purely Chinese trait, not to be confused with the known rules of international diplomacy. Talking from a position of inferiority will not lead to an equitable solution. But first, a national debate.

  • Languages and Eighth Schedule

    Nationalism and the crisis of federalism

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Reorganisation of States

    Mains level: Paper 2- Federalism in India

    The article analyses the challenges federalism in India faces and the important role played by the division of states based on the languages.

    Three conceptions of nationalism in India

    • Following three conceptions of nationalism were prevalent in India before independence.
    • The first, the idea that a community with a strongly unified culture must have a single state of its own.
    • The second saw the nation as defined by a common culture whose adherents must have a state of their own.
    • But this common culture was not ethno-religious.
    •  It conceives common culture in terms of a strong idea of unity that marginalises or excludes other particular identities.
    • A third nationalism accepts that communities nourished by distinct, territorially concentrated regional cultures have the capacity to design states of their own as also educational, legal, economic, and other institutions.
    • This may be called a coalescent nationalism consistent with a fairly strong linguistic federalism.
    • The central state associated with it is not multi-national.
    • At best, it is a multi-national state without labels, one that does not call itself so; a self-effacing multi-national state.

    Suspicion of linguistic identities

    • After Partition, the Indian ruling class began to view with suspicion the political expression of even linguistic identities.
    •  It was feared that federation structured along ethno-linguistic lines might tempt politicians to mobilise permanently on the basis of language.
    • The second fear was about an increase in the likelihood of inter-ethnic violence, encourage separatism and eventually lead to India’s break up.
    • Thus, when the Constitution came into force in 1950, India adopted unitary, civic nationalism as its official ideology.

    Formation of states on linguistic basis and its implications

    • A unitary mindset shaped by the experience of a centralised colonial state was resurrected.
    • The second tier of government was justified in functional terms, not on ethical grounds of the recognition of group cultures.
    • Following the Committee’s recommendations, States were reorganised in 1956.
    • India slowly became a coalescent nation-state, moving from the ‘holding together’ variety to what is called the ‘coming together’ form of (linguistic) federalism.
    • This meant that regional parties were stronger than earlier in their own regions and at the centre.
    • This let to more durable centre because it was grounded more on the consent and participation of regional groups that, at another level, were also self-governing.
    • Indian federalism also attempted to remove its rigidities by incorporating asymmetries in the relation between the Centre and different States.
    • Treating all States as equals required the acknowledgement of their specific needs and according them differential treatment.

    Conclusion

    Coalescent nationalism has served India well, benefiting several groups in India. True, it has not worked as well in India’s border areas such as the North-east and Kashmir. But their problems can only be resolved by deepening not abandoning coalescent nationalism.

  • Important Judgements In News

    Understanding the significance of Kesavananda Bharati case

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Basic Structure doctrine

    Mains level: Paper 2- Basic Structure and essential feature doctrine

    The article revisits the impact and significance of the case for the democracy in India.

    Understanding the Basic Structure doctrine

    • Basic Structure and essential features doctrine was expounded in the Kesavananda Bharati case.
    • In the case, the validity of the 29th amendment which immunised, in the Ninth Schedule Kerala’s takeover of the religious mutt’s property was challenged.
    • Basic structure is the power of judicial review and essential features are what the Court identifies as such in the exercise of that power.
    • Justice Bhagwati remarkably enunciated as an essential feature the “harmony” between fundamental rights and directive principles.
    • The crucial message though is that the apex court has, in the rarest of rare cases, the constituent power to pronounce a constitutional amendment invalid.

    Limits on the powers of Supreme Court

    • The Court is bound by the “golden triangle” of rights created by Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution.
    • Court must derive the “spirit” of the Constitution by reference to the provisions of the Constitution.
    • Since 1973, the evidence shows the Apex Court has shown utmost democratic responsibility and rectitude in interpreting the doctrine of BSEF.

    Consider the question asked by the UPSC in 2019 “Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution is limited power and it cannot be enlarged into absolute power”. In light of this statement explain whether parliament under article 368 of the constitution can destroy the Basic Structure of the Constitution by expanding its amending power? “

    Conclusion

    The ultimate message of BSEF doctrine is not merely to set limits to the power of the managers of people, but to make little by little the tasks of emancipation less onerous.

  • Labour, Jobs and Employment – Harmonization of labour laws, gender gap, unemployment, etc.

    Urban unemployment in India

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 3- Issue of employment in India

    The article discusses the issue of vulnerability of informal jobs in India and suggests the steps to address the problem.

    The urban unemployment in India crept up to 9.83% in August as against 9.15% in July, according to monthly unemployment data released Tuesday by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). In other words, roughly one in every 10 person in urban areas cannot find work

  • Higher Education – RUSA, NIRF, HEFA, etc.

    Crisis in education in rural India and NEP

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2-National Education Policy

    The article analyses the missing focus on the rural youth in the National Education Policy 2020 and its implications.

    Education in rural India and NEP

    • Poor quality education marks and mars the lives of rural citizens.
    • The NEP fails to address the growing school differentiation in which government schools are now primarily attended by children of disadvantaged castes and Adivasi groups.
    • The mushrooming of private schools caters to the aspirations of the more advantaged castes and classes.
    • The NEP overlooks the complexity of contemporary rural India, which is marked by a sharp deceleration of its economy, extant forms of distress, and widespread poverty.
    • Rural candidates are finding it increasingly difficult to gain entry into professional education.
    • The lack of fit between their degrees and the job market means that several lakhs of them find themselves both “unemployable” and unemployed.

    What the NEP misses

    • NEP overlooks the general adverse integration of the rural into the larger macroeconomy and into poor quality mass higher education.
    • The report calls for the “establishment of large, multi-discipline universities and colleges” and places emphasis on online and distance learning (ODL).
    • However, correspondence courses and distance education degrees have become a source of revenue generation for universities.
    • The possibility of forging and promoting environmental studies for local ecological restoration and conservation are missing.
    • Emphasis on local health and healing traditions from the vast repertoire of medical knowledge is missing.
    • Vernacular architectural traditions and craftsmanship to use local resources find no mention at all in the NEP.

    Neoliberal ideas in NEP

    • The NEP moots the possibility of establishing “Special Education Zones” in disadvantaged areas and in “aspirational districts”.
    • But the report provides no details as to how such SEZs will function and who will be the beneficiaries of such institutions.

    Conclusion

    The NEP fails to cater to the needs of rural India’s marginalised majority, who in so many ways are rendered into being subjects rather than citizens.

  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-Middle East

    India needs to change the framework of non-involvement

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Peace in the Middle East

    Realignment of relations is taking place in the Middle East with wider implications for the future of the region. India needs to reconsider its framework based on the non-involvement.

    Recent geopolitical developments

    • India-China tensions have soared over the border issue.
    • The Afghan peace process is underway with the first direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban insurgents at Doha, in Qatar.
    • The normalisation of the relations between Israel and Arab countries began with the UAE and Bahrain normalising the relations.

    Issues with the development

    • The chances of failure in Afghanistan are real.
    • The momentum behind the normalisation of ties between Israel and the Gulf kingdoms, may not necessarily lead to broader peace in the Middle East.
    • The US initiatives in Afghanistan and Arabia are driven by President Donald Trump’s quest for diplomatic victories.

    Why it matters to India

    1) The vulnerability of the peace process

    • Because of competing interests, the peace process in Afghanistan and the Middle East remain vulnerable.
    • The unfolding dynamic will alter the geopolitical landscape in both places.
    • Whether peace breaks out in Afghanistan or not, the Taliban is here to stay.
    • As UAE and Bahrain join Egypt and Jordan in having formal relationships with Israel, the contradiction between Arabs and Israelis is no longer the dominant one in the region.

    2) India should recognise the importance of Arabia

    •  India’s strategic community tends to take too narrow a view of the Arabian salience.
    • The focus is mostly on ensuring oil supplies, promoting manpower exports, and managing the Pakistan problem.
    • We should consider that the Afghan peace talks are taking place in Qatar, a tiny Gulf Kingdom.
    • The UAE and Saudi Arabia were the only countries to recognise the Taliban government in the late 1990s.
    • This time around, they appear to have taken a backseat.
    • Delhi will need to pay more attention to the unfolding realignments between the Arabs and non-Arab states like Iran, Turkey and Israel.

    3) Paradox of American power

    • The U.S. is being seen as a declining power in the matters of the Middle East and Afghanistan.
    •  But the reality remains that the US is the one forcing a change in both the places.

    4) Implications of strategic vacuum created by the U.S. exit

    • As the US steps back from the region, the resulting strategic vacuum is likely to be filled by Russia and China.
    • Russia and China are quite active in both the Middle East and Afghanistan.
    •  China’s future role in Afghanistan, in partnership with Pakistan, could be quite significant and will be of some concern for India.
    • Regional powers have already acquired much say in the new geopolitics of the Middle East.
    • Qatar and UAE punch way above their weight, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are locked in a major contest for regional influence.

    5) Domestic politics in the country

    • Religious radicalism, sectarian and ethnic divisions, and the clamour for more representative governments are sharpening conflicts within and between countries.
    • The collapse of the oil market is undermining the region’s economic fortunes.
    • Collapsing oil market is also making it harder for political elites to address the emerging political challenges.

    Consider the question “Middle East is going through the major realignment of relations. What are its implications for India?.

    Conclusion

    As the old order begins to crumble in the greater Middle East, the question is no longer whether India should join the geopolitical jousting there; but when, how and in partnership with whom.

  • Parliament – Sessions, Procedures, Motions, Committees etc

    Parliamentary oversight and cancellation of question hour

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Question hour and zero hour comparison

    Mains level: Paper 2- Question hour and its significance

    The article highlights the significance of question hour in democracy.

    Context

    • The decision to go without “Question Hour” during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, beginning September 14, has evoked serious concerns about the democratic functioning of the institution.

    Significance of question hour

    • Question Hour is an opportunity for the members to raise questions,
    • It is also a parliamentary device primarily meant for exercising legislative control over executive actions.
    • It is also a device to criticise government policies and programmes, ventilate public grievances, expose the government’s lapses, extract promises from ministers.
    • In short, question hour helps to ensure accountability and transparency in governance.

    Right to question the executive: Historical background

    • The right to question the executive has been exercised by members of the House from the colonial period.
    • The first Legislative Council in British India under the Charter Act, 1853, allowed members the power to ask questions to the executive.
    • The Indian Council Act of 1861 allowed members to elicit information by means of questions.
    • However, it was the Indian Council Act, 1892, which formulated the rules for asking questions including short notice questions.
    • The Indian Council Act, 1909, which incorporated provisions for asking supplementary questions by members.
    • The Montague-Chelmsford reforms brought forth a significant change in 1919 by incorporating a rule that the first hour of every meeting was earmarked for questions.
    • Parliament has continued this tradition.
    • Since 1921, the question on which a member desired to have an oral answer, was distinguished by him with an asterisk, a star.

    Recent instances in which right to ask questions was curtailed

    • The government passed important bills in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha before the formation of department-related standing committees.
    • The Constitution Amendment Bill on J&K was introduced without circulating copies to the members.
    • Several important bills were passed as Finance Bills to avoid scrutiny of the Rajya Sabha.
    • Standing committees are an extension of Parliament.
    • Any person has the right to present his/her opinion to a Bill during the process of consideration.

    Consider the question “What is the significance of question hour in the context of democracy in India? What is the implication of its suspension due to pandemic?”

    Conclusion

    The government’s actions erode the constitutional mandate of parliamentary oversight over executive actions as envisaged under Article 75 (3) of the Indian Constitution.

  • Mother and Child Health – Immunization Program, BPBB, PMJSY, PMMSY, etc.

    Making malnutrition free India by 2030

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Malnutrition and health of the child

    The article analyses the problem of malnutrition in India and suggests the pathways to achieve the malnutrition free India by 2030.

    Severity of the nourishment problem in India

    • There were  189.2 million undernourished people (28 per cent of the world) in India in 2017-19, as per the combined report of FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (FAO, et.al. 2020) on “The state of Food Security and Nutrition in the World”.
    •  India accounts for 28 per cent (40.3 million) of the world’s stunted children (low height-for-age) under five years of age, and 43 per cent (20.1 million) of the world’s wasted children (low weight-for-height) in 2019.
    • In India, the problem has been more severe amongst children below the age of five years.
    • As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS, 2015-16), the proportion of underweight and stunted children was as high as 35.8 per cent and 38.4 per cent respectively.
    • In several districts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Gujarat, the proportion of underweight children was more than 40 per cent.

    Aims of the National Nutrition Mission (NNM)

    • Ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030 is also the target of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-2) of Zero Hunger.
    • Towards this end, NNM aims to reduce stunting, underweight and low birth weight each by 2 per cent per annum.
    • It aims to reduce anaemia among children, adolescent girls and women, each by 3 per cent per annum by 2022.
    • However, the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990–2017 has estimated that if the current trend continues, India cannot achieve these targets under NNM by 2022.

    Understanding the key determinants and deciding policy response

    1) Mothers’ education

    • Mothers’ education, particularly higher education, has the strongest inverse association with under-nutrition.
    • Women’s education has a multiplier effect not only on household food security but also on the child’s feeding practice and the sanitation facility.
    • Despite India’s considerable improvement in female literacy, only 13.7 per cent of women have received higher education (NFHS, 2015-16).
    • Therefore, programmes that promote women’s higher education such as liberal scholarships for women need to be accorded a much higher priority.

    2) Sanitation and access to safe drinking water

    • The second key determinant of child under-nutrition is the wealth index, which subsumes access to sanitation facilities and safe drinking water.
    • WASH initiatives, that is, safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, are critical for improving child nutritional outcomes.
    • In this context, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan aims to eliminate open defecation and bring about behavioural changes in hygiene and sanitation practices.
    • In five years of the Abhiyan, as per government records, rural sanitation coverage has gone from 38.7 per cent in 2014 to 100 per cent in 2019, while the sanitation coverage in urban cites has gone up to 99 per cent by September 2020.
    • This remarkable achievement of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, subject to third-party evaluations, is expected to have a multiplier effect on nutritional outcomes.

    3) Leveraging agricultural policies

    • We should leverage agricultural policies and programmes to be more “nutrition-sensitive” and reinforcing diet diversification towards a nutrient-rich diet.
    • Food-based safety nets in India are biased in favour of staples: rice and wheat.
    • They need to provide a more diversified food basket, including coarse grains, millets, pulses and bio-fortified staples.
    • Bio-fortification is very cost-effective in improving the diet of households and the nutritional status of children.
    • The Harvest-Plus programme of CGIAR can work with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to grow new varieties of nutrient-rich staple food crops.

    4) Promotion of exclusive breastfeeding, complementary foods, diversified diet

    • The promotion of exclusive breastfeeding and the introduction of complementary foods and a diversified diet after the first six months is essential to meet the nutritional needs of infants and ensure appropriate growth and cognitive development of children.

    5) Access to prenatal and postnatal care

    • Access and utilisation of prenatal and postnatal health care services also play a significant role in curbing undernutrition among children.
    • Aanganwadi workers and community participation can bring significant improvements in child-caring practices.

    Consider the question “Assess the severity the problem of malnutrition in India and suggest the measure to achieve the goal of malnutrition free India by 2030”

    Conclusion

    To contribute towards the holistic nourishment of children and a malnutrition free India by 2030, the government needs to address the multi-dimensional determinants of malnutrition on an urgent basis.